


Rangefinding

by Kiiratam



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Glynda is a hardass, Ruby is oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 08:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20757095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: A conversation during Professor Goodwitch's class.Takes place between Volumes 2 and 3. (My BMBLB fic index)





	Rangefinding

Ruby ejected her magazine, let it drop. Loaded another magazine into Crescent Rose, standard load, quick as she could. Kept firing downrange, working her way back through the targets.

  
Beside her, Miló pinged, ejecting her clip, and Pyrrha reloaded. Brought up the heads-up holographic scope from her circlet as the targets got more distant, squeezing off two shots for each Grimm silhouette.

  
The buzzer sounded as Ruby fired off her last shot. Pyrrha, sighting in and about to squeeze the trigger, lowered Miló without firing. They looked back at Professor Goodwitch, higher on the hill. She nodded at them, and turned her attention to Coco, Velvet and Neptune, on the other side of the hill.

  
Ruby spun Crescent Rose back to travel sized, and put her on her back. "I totally missed that last one."

  
"That's why we're practicing. I need to shoot faster. I've been spending too much time working on hand-to-hand with Jaune." Pyrrha shook her head. "But it does feel good to teach. It 's instructive to go back to fundamentals."

  
"That makes sense, I guess." Ruby wasn't really convinced, but Pyrrha seemed pretty sure. It might be worth trying, next round. Just go back to what Uncle Qrow had told her waaaay back when...

  
From the other side of the hill, they started to hear the _zap zap zap_ of Neptune's gun and the buzzsaw of Coco's Gianduja. Ruby couldn't even hear what Velvet was using. She probably had a whole rack of guns to use. There _was_ a reason she and Velvet got along so well.

  
Slinging Miló, Pyrrha keyed up the console. The display flashed up a copy of the holographic Beowolves downrange, the nearest first. Unsurprisingly, at such a short distance, both Pyrrha and Ruby had gotten killshots. "I'm sorry, we were talking about Weiss, before that round."

  
"Yeah. I took your advice, and asked her if she had any ideas. And she had some really good ones! She really seemed to like being asked, too."

  
Pyrrha started cycling back through the range targets. Downrange, the corresponding targets blinked as they were selected. "Weiss likes to be appreciated."

  
"How are you so smart, Pyrrha?"

  
She bit her lip, and didn't look at Ruby. "I'm not, I just-"

  
Ruby scoffed. "Oh, come on, Pyrrha! You don't kick as much butt as you do if you're a dummy! There's a lot of math and science in fighting! Yang always says that the biggest improvement she ever made was before and after taking physics - you know, levers and momentum, and all that. And I didn't really understand a lot of what Uncle Qrow told me until I built Crescent Rose, and learned how she balances, and how she works."

  
The next target blinked up on the screen. Missing the headshot that Pyrrha had put in all the previous targets, just a graze across the top of its head. "That was when that breeze came up." Pyrrha pointed at Ruby's. "See how you hit was a little higher than normal, but still a clean kill? I didn't take the breeze into account, and I shot high."

  
"Oh." But that was easy mental math stuff. Pyrrha's HUD should have given her all the numbers she needed to make that headshot, to three significant figures and everything!

  
"Everyone has a different process for fighting, Ruby. You and Yang were trained all your life by Beacon graduates, so you have a very structured process. And Weiss has a similar process, since she had Academy tutors. But people like me, or Ren, or Nora, or Blake, we did most of our learning by fighting. So it can be a little... rougher."

  
Ruby frowned. "But you won all those Regional Tournaments in Mistral!"

  
"Because I wasn't understanding the theory. So I just spent all my time sparring." Pyrrha looked over at Ruby, a little smile on her face. "Practicing for forty hours a day will help a lot."

  
"But there aren't-" Ruby gasped. "Pyrrha, did you just make a _joke_?" She put her hands on the side of her face, wide-eyed. "We didn't think you knew how!"

  
Pyrrha furrowed her brow. "But I had a pun fight with Blake. Aren't those jokes?"

  
"Oh, _that's_ why Blake disagreed with the rest of us. She didn't tell us about that. Weiss was sure that you were too, uh, the word she used was 'majestic', to do ordinary things like joke. And Yang thought you were the type who liked to listen to jokes, but not tell them yourself."

  
Pyrrha kept tapping through the targets. "What about you?"

  
"Me?"

  
"What did you think?"

  
"I just hadn't heard you make any. You're really... professional, I guess? And you don't say dumb things like I do. All the time."

  
Pyrrha gave her a look that Ruby recognized from Yang's face. It was Yang's 'don't talk down about yourself' look. Or maybe her 'don't insult my sister' face. They were pretty similar, really.

  
"I know, I should be nice to me. I have to spend all this time with me, anyway. But whenever I realize I'm being a big dummy, Weiss gets her 'Ruby is a dolt' look."

  
Pyrrha hesitated. Slowly, she said, "Do you mean when she looks at you with her head a little cocked, and has a slightly lopsided smile?"

  
"Yeah. It's her 'I'm so smart that I know that Ruby's being dumb, but I'm not going to tell her, because I like to watch her be stupid when its not important. "

  
"Ruby, I... don't think that's what that face is."

  
"I do like it more than her angry face. It's just Weiss being kinda smug at me, not her actually getting frustrated. And she does that face a lot more than her angry face now!" Ruby looked over at Pyrrha, trying to figure out what her face was saying. It was kind of like how her face got in class sometimes, when Dr. Oobleck started talking about logistics and chains of supply and Weiss immediately sat up and started paying really close attention, like she did when Ruby explained a new team combo technique. But Pyrrha would just look - what was the word? Befumbled? Beef-addled? Yeah, that sounded right. Looking like a cow, being dumb. Which was all the time. They tasted great, that didn't take brains. She'd heard not to eat cow brains anyway. Maybe the dumb was contagious? That _would_ explain why there was a word for it.

  
So Pyrrha had a beef-addled look on her face. Good to recognize that. ...Actually, now that Ruby knew _that's_ what that look was, Pyrrha did seem to make it around Jaune an awful lot. Or maybe it was just a similar look. It could be really hard to tell sometimes.

  
Pyrrha shook her head, went back to her normal face. Started looking through the targets again. "How are Blake and Yang doing?"

  
"Oh, Bumblebee is going great! They've been practicing on their own, I can tell." It was _really cool_ to see how much work they were putting into it, and how well it was working. It was a pity that it wasn't a one-size-fits-all tactic. But a lot of problems could be solved by throwing Yang at them.

  
"That's... not exactly what I meant. But it's good to hear."

  
Why couldn't people just say what they meant? Ruby knew that _telling_ people that wasn't really useful, though. Yang had sat her down and explained that, after that time Ruby had gotten detention for fighting. What did Pyrrha mean? "Ummm, good? I guess? They've been spending more time on 1v1 training, and less time going down to Vale."

  
"Oh." It didn't look like that was the answer she'd been looking for.

  
Ruby tried to explain. Maybe that would help? "Weiss has been reminding everyone about the Vytal Tournament a lot, and she can, uh..."

  
"Get a little waspish about it?"

  
"...Yeah. But she's right! We are at Beacon to train as Huntresses, not go on dates in Vale."

  
Oh ho ho! Pyrrha had wanted _that_ information. "Dates?"

  
"You know, hanging out. Setting a date to do things. Like the word says."

  
Aaaaaaand it was gone. "Oh." Pyrrha pointed at one of Ruby's targets, where she'd just hit an arm. "What happened here?"

  
"I started rushing, and thinking about the next target. I must have started switching my aim."

  
"So... Weiss?"

  
Ruby nodded. "She just wants us to be the best, and I get that. And I want us to be the best too, so I keep upping our number of practices. After what happened in Mountain Glenn, and on the train, and in Vale..." Trailing off, not sure what to say, she shook herself. Pyrrha knew everything about that. She didn't have to explain. "So Yang and Blake stopped going out to Vale as much, because Weiss kept being angry and disappointed in them. Not out loud, just-"

  
"You could feel it."

  
"...Yeah. And if I can feel it, and it isn't even aimed at me..."

  
Sighing, Pyrrha said, "Is it causing a problem?"

  
"No, no, nothing like that. Weiss didn't say anything. And Yang and Blake still go out to Vale or wherever on the weekend. But they started doing paired training instead of their afternoon drive, or going to get tea, or whatever. And Weiss seems happier about it. But we didn't have a big fight about it or anything. So I think everyone is getting better at listening. ...Even if no one said anything. That I heard." Ruby stopped on one of Pyrrha's targets. "Why do you go for the center-mass shot _and_ a headshot? Why not just two or three center-mass shots? It slows you way down. Even if you had to reload more, I think you'd get more shots off."

  
"It's a habit. If the center shot doesn't stop them, then I probably need a headshot to drop them. What if they're wearing armor?"

  
Ruby gave Pyrrha a look. "But Grimm don't wear armor. You can't use your tournament habits in the field, Pyrrha." Grimm, you could kill. People, you shouldn't. It wasn't a problem Ruby had ever thought she'd face, but Uncle Qrow had trained her for it anyway. She'd thought he was just covering all the possibilities, changing up the parameters of the fight so Ruby could stretch herself. Then Qrow had mentioned tournaments and bandits, and Ruby had felt like a dummy. But she'd also gotten into that fight with Torchwick's thugs, and RWBY kept fighting White Fang... After the incident on the loading docks, Ruby had suffered a few nightmares - of Blake pulling a mask off of a dead White Fang and starting to cry. Because she recognized them. Ruby would have to thank her uncle when she saw him again. Because if she fought people like she did Grimm... even if it wasn't Blake, **someone **would be crying over their dead. "Listen, just try it next round."

  
"I'll try it." The last targets popped up on the display. Pyrrha's undamaged, Ruby's with a hasty, almost-off-target shot that the system still counted as an effective kill. It wasn't really. A Beowolf wouldn't exactly shake off a shot like that, but it would still be mobile, and could still hurt civilians, or escape to recover. Ruby would have to mention that to Professor Goodwitch. It popped up their scores for that round. "Looks like you're in the lead, Ruby."

  
"Oh, cool." It really wasn't something Ruby thought about. She just compared her score to her previous ones. It didn't really matter if she was 'beating' Pyrrha or not. They were on the same team. Well, same side. But she knew Pyrrha cared, so Ruby was trying. It wasn't like Pyrrha was super-competitive, like Cardin. Or Weiss. She just... Ruby tried to break down her gut feeling into thoughts with words. Pyrrha cared because she liked to know her status. Not so she could lord it over anyone, but so she knew who to help. And if she didn't know who was better - like between the two of them and distance shooting - she took it as an opportunity to learn. That was why it was so relaxing to spend time with Pyrrha. She listened, and learned, and she made it look easy. And before you knew it, you were doing the same thing. A thought crossed Ruby's mind as the buzzer sounded and the gunfire from the other side of the hill cut off. "You should meet my dad and uncle some time. They both taught at Signal. If you like teaching, they might have some advice."

  
The range targets reset. Behind them, Professor Goodwitch called down. "Paired exercise. Moving targets. Mixed Grimm and civilians." Ruby blew out a breath. Okay, Qrow's advice on worst case situations... Circle of control. Establish a perimeter of fire, keep pushing it out, let your team evac civies. Circle of control. Remember to breath. In and aim, hold and fire, release and next target. Remember to use your team.

  
Ruby said, without looking at Pyrrha. "Skip the headshots. Two in the chest. You've got the left. Near to far."

  
"Understood."

  
Professor Goodwitch said, "Weapons free." Crescent Rose and Miló sprang to readiness. "Fire on green." Ruby caught the range light in her peripheral vision, felt the first pulse of adrenaline hit. Kept her breathing steady despite that. Willed her hands to stay steady. Waited, as her lizard brain queued up for fight time, screaming like an idiot.

  
Green light. Ruby started firing.


End file.
